Chicago Sun-Times critic Jim DeRogatis and Hitsville are old friends. We even used to host a radio show together. Because of this, I can with enthusiasm list the myriad things for which he should be hauled in front of a court, and cite a few others for which he should probably be jailed, some of these having to do with his deep interest in psychedelic rock.

The judge in the R. Kelly case, however, seems to have found one of the few reasons DeRo shouldn’t be in court, and has okayed a defense subpoena of him, the Chicago Sun-Times is reporting.

DeRogatis is the pop music critic for the paper, but unlike most critics he’s also a serious reporter. He and a colleague at the paper did the original extensive exposé of R. Kelly’s romantic entanglements with very young girls; a year later, he was delivered a 26-minute videotape of what appeared to be Kelly having sex with a young girl. The paper turned the tape over to police, and it became the catalyst for Kelly’s trial, six years later, which just got underway in Chicago this week.

While on one level it’s within the court’s purview to establish the provenance of the tape, putting a reporter on the stand might also give the defense the opportunity to ask him about sources over the course of his extensive (and it should be pointed out) very lonely reporting on Kelly.

Meanwhile, at the trial, the prosecution played the tape for the jury. Reported the AP:

Prosecutors played the sex tape at the center of R. Kelly’s child pornography trial in open court Tuesday, just hours after opening statements in which they accused the R&B singer of choreographing and starring in the footage with an underage girl.

The jurors, who had been taking feverish notes during opening statements, sat motionless while the video played. Their eyes were fixed on a 4-by-4-foot monitor just outside the jurors’ box; in the courtroom, the lights were dimmed and blinds drawn across windows.

A grim-looking Kelly, 41, appeared to watch the entire footage intently on a small monitor on the defense table. He occasionally rocked in his chair and rested his chin in his hand.

The story described the tape like this:

The 27-minute homemade video shows a man having sex with a young female, who is naked for most of the recording except for a necklace with a cross dangling from it.

At the start of the videotape, the man hands the female money and she mouths the words, “Thank you.” She is often blank-faced, impassive. The man speaks to the female in a hushed, monotone voice, and she calls him “Daddy.”

Songs from the Spice Girls and Backstreet Boys blare from a radio. The female dances — the man out of view. Back in view, he has sex with her. The man walks up to the camera to adjust it a few times, but his face is often obscured.

Here’s how the Chicago Tribune described it:

The tape begins with a man handing the female participant money as a commercial for a home refinancing company plays in the background. At his instruction, the female dances for him while “Everybody” by the Backstreet Boys plays on the room’s sound system.

At times, he can be heard telling her to “dance faster, baby,” before instructing her to urinate for the camera. The female often refers to him as “Daddy” while the two engage in dirty talk.

The two pause briefly when a Spice Girls song comes on the radio and the man stops to change the station. The video ends with the man urinating and finishing the sex act.

You can certainly see how, at a moment like that, you wouldn’t want the Spice Girls playing.

For what it’s worth, neither account gibes with the descriptions of the tape in other news reports. One suspects that both AP and the Tribune are expurgating the matter a bit.

The defense also unveiled its strategy for the trial; Kelly’s attorney said it was not he on the tape, and that the girl, whoever she was, was a prostitute, as evidenced by the fact that she was given money. That doesn’t seem like a way to ingratiate the defense to the jury, but it must be part of a grand plan. (Presumably, “It wasn’t him, but if it was, she’s not under age.”)

The defense also said that Kelly has a distinctive mole on his back, and that you could not see a mole on the tape. The Tribune:

The poorly lit video makes it difficult to distinguish any birthmarks or moles on the man’s back when played in real time. At one point, the man turns his entire back to the camera, and he does not appear to have a mole.

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Previously in Hitsville:

R. Kelly and the NYT: The Freaky Defense

Tribune, Sun-Times protest closed hearings in R. Kelly case

Secret hearings in the R. Kelly case

The Godfather Who Shagged Me: The complete R. Kelly SexFacts™—Everything you ever wanted to know about the R. Kelly case

R. Kelly’s Publicist: He slept with my daughter!